About me

Hi, Louis Esselen here, and welcome to my site!

I started playing golf when I was 6 years old and began competing when I turned 8. My first taste of competition was in a junior tournament held at my home club which takes place every year.

I went on to win best gross in my age group year after year till I turned 15. My best memories were, at age 16, winning the best overall gross in the same tournament and being presented with the Gary Player trophy.

Gary was my hero as a junior and winning this trophy was extra special to me. Little did I know that one day I would be working as an instructor in one of his golf academies.

Ironically, Charl Schwartzel's(2011 Masters Winner) father, George, won the Gary Player trophy a couple of years before I did.

The last league game I played for my club before turning Pro was against George, and proudly I beat him 6 and 5, the other player in our group was Retief Goosen whom I lost to one down.

I have now been playing golf for 46 years and still enjoy it very much, but more with my friends than competing. I have broken 70 on numerous occasions and my best gross score ever was 64.

Here I am with my hero Gary Player, at my home club at 10 years old.

You can see I got a little taller since we saw each other last!

Hole in one's, well, I had one in 1987 and I’m trying for the next one!

My pro career spans 20 years, mostly teaching, but I did give the tour a go in the beginning. It is every golfers dream to play the tour, but I did not enjoy the travelling that much.

Having started as a apprentice professional and training to run golf operations I found my passion in teaching.

My dream came true on completion of my apprenticeship when I was offered a lifetime opportunity to work as a golf instructor for the Gary Player Golf Academy in Singapore.

From working and assisting with the teaching in Singapore I was offered an opportunity to open the Gary Player Golf Academy in China. This was a historical occasion as it was the first golf academy to be opened in China. Many more followed afterwards.

My journey continued by working and living in Hong Kong for about a year before returning to Singapore where I headed up an academy at a driving range in Singapore and their hotel resort in Malaysia.

These overseas experiences taught me to communicate in lots of different ways to my students in order to improve their golf.

With the many languages spoken in these parts of the world I had to sometimes communicate literally by physically taking the student through the swing movements and demonstrating myself.

This proved to be very effective at the time, and I continue still to this day to explore other ways of communicating the swing movements to get the message across more effectively.

After giving thousands of lessons during this time I became much more aware of teaching my students how to feel the right movements in the swing. This gave them much more confidence to repeat the correct movements much quicker.

Other highlights I enjoyed were writing instruction articles for Premiere Golf Magazine Singapore, and Golf Malaysia Magazine.


How my expertise can help you

Throughout my teaching career I have always known that “feel” plays a vital role in the golf swing. It gives you the confidence in knowing what you are trying to accomplish. It encoourages you to play by remembered feel.

Your challenge is applying the feelings I have mentioned on this site to your own swing. Take and use what will help you, discard the rest.

You should notice a dramatic change in your swing and ball striking by using the “feelings” I have described.

The best advice I can give you is, perfect your basic fundamentals first. This is the best way to develop your swing consistency and predictability of your golf shots!

Although mechanics are important we need to combine feel with them to make any progress.

Most importantly, have fun, while you learn and feel free to contact me should you need any help, or have any comments.

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